Sri Lankan authorities have arrested three nationals in link with a planned terrorist attack on an Israeli-run Jewish community centre in a famous tourist town on the country’s southeast coast.   Sri Lanka’s Minister of Public Security and Foreign Affairs Vijitha Herath stated at a briefing that the three individuals had been taken into custody and were being probed. 

As reported by the Sri Lankan newspaper Daily Mirror, quoting Sri Lankan police sources, one of the three suspects apprehended by the Terrorism Investigation Division was in Iraq. The detentions come after a threat was noted in the Arugam Bay area. According to Sri Lankan police spokesperson Nihal Thalduwa, the threat reportedly targeted the Chabad House community camp. 

Herath stated Sri Lankan authorities delivered intelligence concerning a potential attack on Israeli tourists earlier this month.  Following the threat, Sri Lanka activated troops and increased police patrols near the Chabad House in Arugam Bay and others across the land.  

Sri Lanka hasn’t witnessed a terrorist episode since 2019 when 269 people were slain in a series of bombings of churches and resorts on Easter Sunday coordinated by a local jihad group named National Thowheeth Jama’ath (National Monotheism Organization). Tourism, which accounts for a significant portion of Sri Lanka’s gross domestic product and is its third-largest source of foreign revenue after exports and private remittances, took a plunge after the 2019 attack and mourned again in 2022 when the country faced a significant economic crisis.  

Sri Lanka, still healing economically from the situation with the help of an International Monetary Fund bailout, is looking to maintain its tourism numbers high. After the threat, Sri Lankan police reported that, along with intelligence agencies, it is designing “a plan to safeguard tourists and resorts.”

Though particulars of the plan were not unleashed, the police announced a hotline committed to assisting Israeli tourists in the country during crises. The government of the Maldives, a neighbouring island country, has taken a vastly different course than Sri Lanka, announcing in June that it would prohibit Israelis from the country entirely. The predominantly Muslim population of the Maldives has voiced anger over the war in Gaza, a stance witnessed in its government as well. Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu briefed the UN in September that

“the genocide by Israel in Gaza is a travesty of justice.”